


All of This Has Happened Before

by msobsessivecompulsive



Category: 24 (TV), Battlestar Galactica (2003), Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 09:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2186358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msobsessivecompulsive/pseuds/msobsessivecompulsive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if some people are drawn to each other because their atoms were near each other when the universe was created and over time the same atoms keep coming back together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of This Has Happened Before

**Author's Note:**

> Bill/Karen, Spaceparents, and Carson/Hughes are from 3 different shows and 3 different historical periods yet I can't help thinking about how eerily similar they are. This fic originally came about as a headcanon: that all the middle-aged OTPs are Laura Roslin and Bill Adama reincarnated, just trying to find each other again. It sort of took off from there.

“ _If you believe in the gods, then you believe in the cycle of time.  That we are all playing our parts in a story that is told again, and again and again throughout eternity_.”

-Laura Roslin, Kobol’s Last Gleaming

 Dreams. She called them. 

 _No.  Visions_ , Elosha had corrected.   _Of the time to come and the time before_.

A prophet.  A dying leader.  A woman.  A woman with a body who had failed her.  

She had stopped dreaming.  She fell into another consciousness, awaking to find him at her bedside.  Dutifully. Waiting for the inevitable. A dying leader.

 _You don’t have to stay_ , she would whisper.  He would turn a page in a book and a vague memory would return to her.  He would smile and she would see him.  She would see others.  She would see herself reflected back at him, with her peaked skin and tired eyes.

A vision.

Sometimes she wished it on someone else.  This burden.  She would close her eyes and will it to another poor soul.  But she had to push forwards another day.  Just another day.

The jingling of keys.  A sigh.  A vision.

There was no death.  Only re-birth.

****

The dreams began again after her cancer scare.

They started out vague and wispy, the memories of which would touch Elsie Hughes’s consciousness briefly as she awoke…only to fade away again into the back of her mind, forgotten.  Like most dreams.

Yet, something was familiar about them.  The dreams.  They seemed a part of her.  Sometimes she would be gripping a large wooden stand, and looking up into a crowd of people, whose faces were blurred. She did not know them.  Yet she felt as if she did.

Other times she would be standing in a large room, her hands clasped behind her back as a stocky man in uniform stood beside her growling orders at others in uniforms.  At once they were Daisy, Thomas, Anna, Mr. Bates, Mrs. Patmore….and at once they were not. All at once it was Mr. Carson standing beside her, his arm resting carefully on the small of her back.  And at once it was not.

Maybe it was her thinking about death.  The fear.  It made the dreams stronger.  More vivid.  She would wake in the morning, tears in her eyes, the feeling of nausea so strong she sometimes stuck her head out the window and lost the previous night’s dinner.  Other times, she would wake with the faint sickeningly sweet taste of smoke in her mouth, though she often wondered how she recognized it. For she had never smoked a cigar in her life.

She just knew.

The dreams stayed this way.  At least for a little while.  She woke up one morning, sobbing, clutching desperately to her hair. It was falling out. Only after scrambling out of her bed and inspecting herself in the mirror did her worries abate.  But the dreams did not.

She would awake, nearly every night it seemed, reaching beside her for the warm body that was not there.   _Mr. Carson_.

Could you ache for someone you had never been with?

After the beach, after the small wedding, after their retirement…the dreams all but stopped. It was like a vague fear that nestled in the back of her mind. Periodically, she would arise one morning, knowing she’d had another.  She would puzzle over it at breakfast as he handed her the toast. 

_What’s the matter?_

_Oh nothing._  She would smile.   _Just a strange dream_.

And still she never told him.  Even as she sat by his bedside, holding his hand.  Congestive heart failure.  

Three years. They’d only had three years together.

And still she never told him.

*****

He thought for sure that she would stop haunting him.  After Elsie’s cancer scare.  After their day at the beach.  After the wedding.

But still the woman in the red dress would come to him.

She was like a distant breeze, that followed him in his sleep. Giggling, her tinkling laughter would float lazily around his head.  Was she a ghost or a memory?

At first he felt guilty.  Like a voyeur.  But then he realized that she was his.  All at once she was Elsie Hughes, her curls draped around her shoulders, her lips red with life, her green eyes sparkling with mischief.

And all at once she was not.

Sometimes Charles Carson would awaken in the night, looking over at Elsie’s small body beside his, breathing in and out.  He would nestle closer to her, rest his hand gently on her chest.  Her heart beating slowly, steadily.  She would always move closer to him in response, as if sensing that he needed her closer.  That he needed her. 

Time.  There hadn’t been enough time.

She came to him more and more, as he lie in his bed.  Dying.  She became one with Elsie.  She had always been Elsie.  He would reach for her and she was always there.   But it was all wrong. Her mischievous eyes were full of a deep sadness that drained her.  Her curls seemed to fall flat with age, with exhaustion.

 _I’m sorry_ , he would say over and over.

 _Don’t be sorry_.   _Don’t be sorry_ , she would say. Over and over. 

Sometimes he would wake from a fitful sleep, unable to breathe.  She would comfort him, lie down beside him.  Her warmth mixed with his. And he would be at peace again.

He knew when it was finally time.  All at once he was glad she was there.  And all at once his heart ached with it.  With leaving her.

In the end, the lady in red had blonde hair that pillowed softly around her face. 

He knew her too.

*****

 _Tyrant_! They would scream at her as they stormed furiously from the room.  _You’re just a fucking tyrant!_

Karen Hayes supposed she was.

Her office her ivory tower.  Her people her tiny subjects that she ruled with her iron fist.  Waiting for someone to question her power.

How much longer until she fell?

She didn’t expect a man to be her downfall.  At times she felt like she was physically falling.  Sometimes in her dreams she really did.  But she never hit the ground.  A strong arm always grabbed her, pulled her back up to her ivory tower.

 _Bill_.

The world.  The weight of the world was on her shoulders.  She would run a hand through her hair, take a deep breath, and walk into another meeting. Nerve gas today. A bomb tomorrow. And still she gave orders. And still she ruled with her fist.

Sometimes she would pause over a folder, glance up at him.  Reach over to take his hand and a small whisper would encircle her head.

 _Bill_.

She wondered if she was going crazy when the dreams started.  She was standing in front of 12 people.  People she did not recognize and yet she knew.  Who wanted answers.   _What was the question?_

And then she’d fall.  Head first, from her tower, hurtling towards the floor.  The floor of a spaceship.  And he would grab her and pull her back up.  And she would look up at his piercing blue eyes and he would smile. And then he wasn’t Bill. He was one of the others.  The men she knew but did not know.

She’d startle awake and reach out beside her, grasping his arm. Grumbling in his sleep, he would turn over and pull her towards him in a protective embrace.  He had her. He would always have her.

_Bill._

It was like her secret.  The whispers.  The voices of the wind.  It was always one voice.  Her voice and not her voice. Murmuring his name like a lovesong.  Sometimes she would hear keys jingle in the wind and a memory would come to her briefly.  On the tip of her mind, like a word forgotten.  And still it moved with her, through her. 

Without him, she feared, it would all end.  The end of her?  The end of what she stood for.  The end of what?  The end of time.

Time.  There hadn’t been enough time.

It was nighttime when she knew.  She was dreaming again.  She was in a kitchen giving orders.  Her ivory tower was different here, more familiar.  And then she fell again as she always did.  Her face hurtling towards the floor, Karen thought:   _This is it.  The end of my reign_.

When she hit the floor she shot up in bed, gasping for breath, her body coated with sweat.  She listened for the whispers.  But they were gone.

_Bill._

She was alone. 

******

 _Deja vu_. At least that’s what he told himself.

But it was more than that. When Bill Buchanan met Karen Hayes it was like time came to a stand still.  Like he had been searching for her his entire life.

He had.

Sometimes he would dream after they’d made love.  Strange, sensual dreams of nights in a large green tent, the air tight and humid around them.  Of tangled sheets, a uniform lying on the edge of the bed. Beside a red dress.

But these were rare.  Mostly it was the sensation of being guided.  Little actions that felt pre-destined.  One of the first times she had stayed at his place, they were reading side by side in bed.  He reached over and ran his hands through her hair and she smiled, closing her eyes and leaning into his touch. As if he’d done this before.

He had.

Sometimes he would be at work.  He would pick up the phone and dial her number to hear her voice on the other end of the line.  Distance and space and the time in between.  It was as if he had always called her like this.

He had.

But it was even more than that.  It was a feeling.  The feeling.  Of coming home.

To her. 

Home was all at once a place and a person.  A time shared.  A bed with two pillows.  Two coffee mugs sitting on a counter.  Pumps and sneakers sharing a shelf. Hands held in an aiport.   He always felt lost without her.  As if a piece of himself had been taken and hidden away. A jigsaw puzzle that only she could put back together.

 _It will only be a month_.  A promise.  It would be alright, he knew. Because whenever she came back, he was home.  

The dreams would return when she was gone.  An ache for a distant place that held her presence.  For green tents and humid nights.  For letters untouched.  For kisses filled with promise.  

But they had certain responsibilities.

And this was his responsibility.  Bill ducked and rolled, stopping in the doorway.  It was simple really. Dying.  He knew it wasn’t going to hurt. It would be like floating away. It was like he had died before.

He had.

 _Home_.  He thought to himself, as he paused.  A strange peace overcame him in that second as he aimed the gun above him.   _He was going home_.

He pulled the trigger.

*****

He’d finished the cabin. Some time ago.  More than a time ago.  It would be built again. 

He was dying.  Bill Adama knew this even as he lay on the crudely made bed in the cabin.  Big enough for two and occupied by one.

Sometimes he could still feel her breath on his cheek, her fingers dancing lazily in his hair.  Her eyes smiling at him as he stared out the window.  Towards the East.

He’d made their home bit by bit.  Each brick a memory filled with love. His love.  Neverending.

It would be neverending.

He wondered what it would feel like.  He coughed again and blinked painfully.  Yes.  He was all at once present and past and future.  An image of a blonde woman and a man with piercing blue eyes came to mind.  They were smiling.  And another.  A man and a woman in uniform sipping brandy.

 _Laura_.

Her response was a promise.  A guiding hand.  All at once a whisper and kiss.  He could feel her, sweeping over him.  He closed his eyes.  _Oh how I’ve missed you_.

Her breath brushed against his ear.   _All of this has happened before_ , she murmured as the last of the life left him.

_And all this will happen again._


End file.
